Jeffstunes's Blog

Having posted videos to Youtube for nearly a year. Something I recognised was that audio and video quality were limited. If I uploaded a video with good quality stereo audio, It would get converted by Youtube, to lower quality mono. I managed to part resolve that issue with a free video converter that I found, which enabled me to make my own flash videos and set the audio, and video quality.

Recently, Youtube have started to cater for higher quality video and audio though.

All of this lead me to search for another Youtube type site that would allow higher quality, and I came across a site called Livevideo. I decided that I would only put my original songs on thayt site. It doesn't have anywhere near the amount of traffic that Youtube gets, but I was ok with that. It's a place I can send people to hear my songs in better audio quality.

All these videos are in my past posts, but you can check them out in higher quality audio at the following link:

Jeffstunes Livevideo channel

As per usual. Here's the latest info on my Youtube statistics.

The viewings of all my videos add up to 167,997.

I've had 11,668 visitors to my channel, and I have 563 subscribers.

I shall be uploading another song to youtube soon. So that means I'll be posting soon too :)

OK this one's really fresh. It was uploaded a little while ago!!

It's an original song that I put together over the last week or so.

On all of my other videos that contains my original songs, the videos are made up of images, in the style of a slideshow. So this one is a break from that pattern. This is the first time I've made a sort of movie out of one of my own songs. I wanted to theme the video on the meaning of the song, and I reckon I've managed to achieve that.

The name of the song is "Don't wish it away". It's about those that want the days and years to be over. Maybe it's grief, or impatience. Or maybe something else. The video is centred on things disappearing, and also things going in reverse. There is symbolism in all of this.

Check out my new song:

Dont wish it away - Jeffstunes

Here's the regular digest of Youtube food (for me).

I've got 550 subscribers now.

My channel has been looked at 11,329 times, and the overall viewing figures all of my videos are now at 162,129.

I'm mulling over a cover version for my next video. There are three song I want to do. The songs are "The air that I breathe" by the Hollies, "Running on faith" by Eric Clapton or "My father's eyes", also by Eric Clapton.

So now I've reached the sixty third vid. At last I have caught up.

This is one of my own songs and it is titled "Sight Or Sound".

I have been writing poems since before I was 10, and one of my favourite things to do, was to make puzzles out of my poems, and hide meanings and subtleties within the words.

So it was inevitable that some of that would cross over into my songwriting. This song is a good example of that. In the description, I ask people to work out what the song means, and if they can discover all the links within the song and the video. I have only given the answers to those that have asked. I could tell everyone, but I prefer that some know and understand, and some don't.

This was a song that I wrote early last year, and it features a very good friend of mine, and a very accomplished guitar player. He is "Steve Morgan". He only recently got married. So I hope he has a wonderful future with his wife.

So I hope you enjoy the song, and the wonderful skills of Steve.

Check it out:

Sight Or Sound - Jeffstunes and Steve Morgan

Here's an update on the Youtube numbers.

542 Subs.

11,175 channel viewings.

158,875 overall video views.

So I got there in the end. I've caught up with my video releases. So I'm not too sure what the next post will be about. I'll know once I've decided what song to upload. It might be an Original song, or one of the masses of cover songs that have been requested of me. Over 100 now I think :)

This next song was a sort of collaboration with a musician in Canada. I came across this guy last year, before I started posting videos up on to Youtube. He writes a lot of music, and was eager to co-write songs with other people. So he would send me the music that he created, and I would attempt to put words and a vocal melody to it. It's a bit like Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The difference was that we made absolutely nothing from it :)

We got through several songs, and we both quite liked the final results. Then I started posting my videos up to Youtube, in about July. Very ealy this year, I started to encourage my canadian musical friend to start posting his own music up to Youtube as well. He has done very well up to this point, and that's well deserved.

Now to the point of the post, and the song in question. He posted up some music, inviting others to put words to it. It inspired me, so I worked on the lyrics and vocal melody, and I called the result "Traffic signals". I used some imagery in the video, which is symbolic of the meaning.

So here it is:

Traffic Signals by Jeffstunes and Songvibe

If you like the music in this song, then I suggest you go and take a look at his Youtube channel. His username is 'Songvibe'. He's got a decent collection of songs on there already.

As per usual. This is the latest on the stats.

I've now got 539 Subscribers.

There are 11,121 channel views.

There are 156,734 overall video views. Up by a few more thousand

So to the next post. It's an Original song that features a very good friend of mine, and an excellent guitarist.

I've been away from the computer for most of last week. My grandmother passed away two weeks ago, and the funeral was a couple of days ago. She was a wonderful woman, who I loved. She had a long life. She reached the ripe old age of 93.

In the early part of last year, I was taking part in music collaborations. One of these was with a Swedish man called Ulf. He is a very talented guy, and has retired from performing. He is now concentrating on composing, and is currently providing music for film and television. I would say that the main area of his music is electronic. I finished one song with him, which he wrote the music for, and I wrote the words and vocal melody. However, this is not that song. I only mention it because he wanted to have a go at doing the music for this song. We never got around to doing it, so this one is all me. It's an original song by me, called "Take me home".

It's about someone who has made a big mistake in a relationship, that caused it to break. In the words, the person is begging for forgiveness.

Have a listen, and see what you think.

Original by Jeffstunes - Take me home

Back to the stats.

I've got 534 Subscribers now. They are still climbing consistently.

The amount of views on my channel are now 11,121. All going in the right direction.

Another few thousand added to my total video views, so they now stand at 154,447.

The next video is a collaboration with a very talented canadian musician friend.

Now for something a little different. A good friend of mine asked me if I could do an alternative version of a Beatles song several months ago. The only provision was that I could not select any of their songs that had been hit singles. The song I was to choose, had to come from one of their albums. I listened to all of their albums, and picked 10 possible songs out of all of them. Then I whittled it down to just one.

Penning my own material is normally quite easy, but this was more challenging than I initially thought. With my own songs I can hear the full arrangement in my head, and all I have to do is to bring that into reality. However, with this song. It already had music to it, and I had to try and forget the original music, so that I could come up with my own. It wasn't a quick process, but I eventually came up with something in the end.

Check out my new version:

My version of All I've got to do by The Beatles

My next video is another of my Original songs. One I wrote last year.

Now to round up with my Youtube figures.

The subs are now up to 526.

The viewings of my channel are 11,071.

The sum total of my video viewings are 150,542.

Only one more to the 60th vid. This is number fifty nine. This is one of those songs that is quite memorable. The reason for that is that it's quite a different song. It is "Mmm mmm mmm mmm" by the "Crash test dummies". If you are familiar with this song, then you will know that the lead vocal is quite low. So it was a chance for me to reach to the depths of my voice and give it a good go.

This is what it ended up like:

Me singing Mmm mmm mmm mmm by The crash test dummies

You might notice that I make a reference to a guy called Tay Zonday at the beginning. Anybody that has done the Youtube rounds will have probably heard of him. He became famous for a song he put on Youtube called "Chocolate rain". The song is nothing special, but his voice is something you cannot forget. It is a surprise to see that sort of voice come out of his frame. He appears very much like a student, but when he starts to sing. This low thunderous sound comes out. Very low :)

This is what is happening with my Youtube stuff at the moment.

My subscribers are up to 522.

The viewings for my channel are now 11,048.

Finally, the total video viewings are 148,768.

Only a couple of weeks and will have caught up with my videos. Then I can post to my blogs as I release the videos. The next of my videos was a challenge set by a friend last year. I've had such a backlog of requests, that I only got around to doing it recently. The clue is "The Beatles"

Back to another cover. This tune reached 19 in the UK charts in 2001. I think it is a fantastic song, and it should have done better than that. It's quite surprising to me that not many people actually know the song.

It was done by a group called "Toploader". Everybody seems to know "Dancing in the moonlight", which was their most successful song, as far as I know. I didn't do that one though. I did "Only for a while", and It's my favourite out of all of their songs.

So here it is:

Me singing Only for a while by Toploader

As my contact list grows. So does the hit of views I get in the first few days of putting a vid up. This is because it enables me to notify all those people when I upload something. So I'll upload a video, and then share it once with all my contacts. This also means that they can share their videos with me. There's been some issues though, and I've had to start removing some names. There are some that send me a whole batch of messages for just one video. Perhaps they think I didn't see it the first time, and that I might if they send it ten times!! There are also those that keep on sending me the same videos every day for weeks, and those who send me everyone else's videos. I think I'm getting about 80+ sent to me every day at the moment. So I'm starting to trim down. I can't possibly watch all those.

Back to the latest figures.

520 Subs.

11,036 Channel views.

147,599 overall views.

Next I go deep. Very deep :)